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In the far future, an accident aboard the orbital research vessel Chronomega-1 causes the station to slice backward through the fabric of space-time, leaving loose threads in its wake. As the maelstrom fades and the threads pull together, knots are formed...

The haunted Tower of Ravingspire sits upon a prime nexus of this entropy, and its immortal lord has haunted the peoples of the Vorpal Realm for generations. The Dark Lord of the Tower was defeated long ago, but time doesn’t work like it should in the Tower, and those who should have succumbed to mortality… have come back.

Return to Ravingspire is a cooperative questing game for 1-4 players. Take on the roles of Heroes climbing the ever-shifting Tower to the Spire and face its Dark Master. But beware! For the Tower lies upon a nexus of space-time, and its portals may as easily lead to other dimensions as they will up the Tower.

Return to Ravingspire

RETURN TO RAVINGSPIRE is a cooperative questing board game with dice-battle mechanics, based in a land of Swords and Sorcery in a Tower built upon the remains of a crashed far-future space station. The Tower is ever-shifting in space and time, and wielding the Vorpal Artifacts the Heroes may open Portals into other parallel realms and times that the Tower also inhabits. The challenges are encountered utilizing a series of beautifully-illustrated oversized Tower cards, each representing one level of the labyrinthine Tower of Ravingspire and containing a diverging path for the party each turn. Players control a party of 1-4 heroes who will collectively choose which path to take to defeat or bypass each level guardian. They may choose to face it head-on, battling it with magic and might, or they may decide to avoid its wrath and escape through a nearby Portal, seeking their fortunes in the mysterious lands beyond before returning to the Tower, equipped with hard-fought weapons and treasure.

Each 5" x 8" Tower Card presents you with a choice about how you want to face the Encounter.

Return to Ravingspire is a stand-alone adventure game, and does not require the original RAVINGSPIRE to play. It comes beautifully packaged in an embossed, leatherette, wooden book-shaped box. When placed upon a bookshelf, the game will resemble the leather-bound spell book of the original Dark Master of the Tower, Lord Ravingspire.

An elegant box for a more civilized age

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Vorpal Chainsword Games is three guys, passionate about gaming. For years we were making custom games for our friends. Now we would like to share them with the world. VC Games' members are Cory Scanlan, author of The Vorpal Chainsword Blog, writer and photographer Joshua Carlson, and graphic designer Cullen Bright. We are the creators of Ravingspire: Assault on the Tower of Madness, the Deck-Building, Rotating-Dungeon Boardgame. Now we want to bring your Heroes back to the Haunted Tower, this time in a fast-play, choose-your-path cooperative adventure that can thrust the heroes through both space and time!

Return to Ravingspire is a beautiful addition to any shelf. The adventure may be experienced by a single player, or with up to three additional player companions. We want to bring you a beautiful game made with high quality components and custom dice, housed in an embossed, leatherette, wooden book-shaped box. We can only hope to craft this elegant boardgame through the funding mechanics of Kickstarter.

Its solo play-ability, plus the robust and compact size of the boardgame box tome (which is approximately ~10 inches tall, ~7 inches wide, and ~2-1/2 inches thick) allow for it to easily be taken along by a traveling player when they journey to far off lands. And it will look just as good when they set it back upon the bookshelf after returning from their quest.

The game design is finished, and your donations will go toward high quality manufacturing. We’re regular backers of projects on Kickstarter, and we are intimately aware of how some Kickstarter projects can over-promise but under-deliver. We delivered our Kickstarter for the original Ravingspire ahead of schedule because of our diligent planning and design work we did before launch, and have once again taken the time to work on this game and line up the logistics for this Kickstarter to be delivered before Christmas of this year. We do have some longer-term dream stretch goals we’d love to hit, but any stretch goals that would extend the production time of the game will ship to you separately and after you’ve already received the main game by December.

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Return to Ravingspire is a cooperative questing game with dice-battle mechanics. At the beginning of each turn, a Tower Card is drawn. This Tower Card will present the Heroes with two or three choices on how they wish to proceed. The party decides which path to choose, which could mean doing battle with a denizen of the Tower.

Each Hero in Ravingspire has two custom Hero dice. The first is their Character Die, which is unique to them and is inscribed with their Hero name on one face. The second is their Class die, which is dependent on their character class. There are three classes in Return to Ravingspire: REAVER (Red dice), who solves challenges head-on though blade and bloodshed; ROGUE (Blue dice), who prefers cunning and guile to blunt tactics to win the day; and RUNELORD (Green dice), who have mastered the mystic runes left by the ancients to perform feats of wonder.

When doing battle with the guardians of the Tower, or exploring the Portals to lands beyond, the Heroes will utilize three primary statistics: Fight, Skill, and Charm. Each creature or challenge will have some amount of these three characteristics on its Battle Matrix that must be eliminated before it can be overcome and the heroes can push forward.

When an enemy is encountered, their Battle Matrix of Fight, Skill, and Charm statistics are recorded on the Combat Board. The Heroes may then roll their Hero dice to try and defeat the Foe or challenge presented. Each face of an Hero die may have a Fist, Key, or Orb on its face, which when rolled reduce an enemy or challenge’s Battle Matrix value (recorded on the Combat Board) by one for each stat rolled. If an enemy is not defeated at the end of the turn, then each Hero will take damage from the enemy’s attacks!

There are also three other faces the die may have, unique to each Hero Class, which are Dodge, Critical Strike, and Vorpal Magic.

All Heroes have two Dodge symbols on their Class die, which reduces any damage they take from the enemy that turn. Thanks to their dexterous abilities, Rogues have a third Dodge on their Class die, allowing them to survive combat more often than any other Class.

Reavers can Critical Strike using their Class die, which counts as two Fight in a single die face. This allows them to more easily take down the beasts and heavy-hitting monsters of Ravingspire that rely on brute force to overpower their victims.

Runelords are the only class that may roll a Vorpal result, which the Player may use as any type of attribute in an encounter. This makes Runelords the most versatile of all the Hero Classes.

Reaver, Runelord, and Rogue Heroes. The Battle Matrix on their Hero Battlemat displays their ability in each Attribute.

The Hero Battlemats also contain three item slots showing what kind of the magic equipment the Hero is trained to utilize. These may be weapons, objects, relics, armor, or potions. At the top of each Battlemat the Hero's Vigor card is slotted. This card is illustrated with the Hero's image and numbers 1-16 across it, and can be rotated to display the Hero's current health, similar to how it is used in our card battle game, ReaverQuest.

The party begins the game equipped with four magic items to help them in their quest that will protect them from becoming lost forever in the mystic Portals. These they will disperse among the party, such that each Hero carries at least one Vorpal Artifact. Each Player will slot the associated card into their character sheet and take the corresponding Vorpal die and add it to their Character and Class Hero dice for every test.

The Hero Battlemat and Vorpal Artifact Cards are made of thick heavy cardstock and possess a dice-shaped opening to provide each Player with a convenient place to store their dice between turns.

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When Heroes engage in Combat with the denizens of the Tower or during their adventures in the portal realms the damage they take will be dependent on their marching position. This is because each enemy fights in a different manner, and running up front to face them in melee or hanging back to pepper them with arrows or spells can lead to different levels of damage the Hero takes the battle. To easily illustrate and track this, before each Tower card is drawn the party chooses in what order they wish to enter the chamber in, known as their marching position. One Hero must take the lead position, but any other players are free to choose where to stand. Once their position is chosen, it generally cannot be changed until the end of the turn. When the Tower card is drawn, it will show which Heroes are in vulnerable positions and will take extra damage if they engage in battle, and which Heroes are in shielded positions and will take reduced damage from the Foe.

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A Hero’s equipment slots allow them to equip special Loot cards. Loot cards when slotted may let a Hero re-roll dice, add bonuses to their attack, or heal them in the nick of time. Each Hero can only keep and equip three Loot cards between turns, so they must choose wisely what to keep if they find more Loot than they can carry!

The Heroes will likely only find a few treasures carried by enemies within the Tower itself, but they can find vast riches when exploring the Portals to the Other Realms!

Travel through the Mystic Portals!

The Tower levels are only one of many places the Heroes may find themselves, as on each level lies a Portal the Heroes may take into another World, represented by a separate Portal Deck and Portal Book. If the Heroes choose to escape through a Portal rather than face the Tower Level’s Guardian, they draw a Portal card which tells them what place and time they end up. They could find themselves in the Den of Thieves known as Peltgrande’s Folly, fending off Dinosaurs in the steaming jungles of The Lost Lands, or even battling insane mutants and crazed robots in the post-apocalyptic city of Singularity.

The adventures in Other Realms are contained within the Portal Book, which has over one hundred different storylines for the Heroes to encounter, each with multiple Outcomes depending on what paths the Heroes choose and how they decide to face the challenges.

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The Other Realms that may be reached from Ravingspire are rich in treasure and equipment that can help the Heroes when they return, and they can find many allies in those realms who can heal them or grant them extra equipment.

But the Heroes should not tarry long exploring the otherworldly Portals, as every time they utilize those Portals the stability of the nexus magics will slowly seep out of the Tower. This is represented in-game by a Foe marker that travels down the Tower as the Heroes travel up it. If the Foe marker ever reaches the Tower entrance, then the Dark Lord is unleashed into the world and the Heroes lose the game.

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The Vorpal Artifacts the Heroes carry anchor them to the Tower and will always eventually pull them back, preventing them from getting lost forever in the other dimensions. How long they roam the dimensions each jaunt will depend on what paths the Heroes choose while encountering the fantastic creatures that wander the beyond.

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Ultimately, the Heroes seek to reach the Spire of the Tower and face its dark master once and for all. One of three Final Boss Spire Cards is randomly chosen when the Heroes enter the Spire Keep and outlines the final battle they must face to win the game and defeat the Tower’s evil forever!

What dark lord will you find at the top of the Tower?

If you look at the Pledge Levels you'll see a few that include the QUEST bonus (REAVER BACKER and RUNELORD BACKER). These pledge levels include a copy of our fast-paced battle cardgame of brawling and swordplay: REAVERQUEST (for 2-3 Players), which is set in the same world as Ravingspire. Reaverquest is already available along with the original Ravingspire, but we didn't use Kickstarter for it and think a copy of Reaverquest would be a fun addition to anyone getting a copy of Return to Ravingspire. You can get more information about Reaverquest and find tutorial videos at www.vorpalchainswordgames.com.

Reaverquest can be played in just a few minutes and is a great pick-up game to play when traveling or when waiting for the rest of your friends to show up for game night. As an added bonus, we've gone ahead and included separate Quest bonus stretch goals into the goals below that are only for our QUEST backers. These Quest bonus stretch goals when reached will also give any Quest backer copies of our two other (but as yet unreleased) card battle games, RunelordQuest and RogueQuest!

Reaverquest

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We have an initial funding goal of $7,500 in order to bring Return to Ravingspire to market. Any Stretch Goals achieved will take the game to the next level, and offer more to our backers.

At $7,500 Return to Ravingspire has been funded! We’ll be able to high-quality manufacture all the components and ship the game to you in a beautiful embossed-leatherette wooden book-shaped box! Thank you!

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Stretch Goal Unlocked! Marcus the Runelord added to the game!

At $10,000 a Fifth Hero will now be added to the game, with a new Character card, player piece, and Character and Class dice: Marcus the Runelord. Marcus's mastery of rune magics allow him to re-roll any Vorpal dice from the Vorpal Artifacts he equips. This means if Marcus dares face the tower alone, then he’ll be able to re-roll all four Vorpal Dice each round!

Florence Haymaker, Village Hero Unlocked!

At $15,000 a Sixth Hero has been added to the game, with a new Character card, player piece, and Character and Class dice. Florence Haymaker, Village Hero, is a Reaver who has plenty of brawn but very little in the way of brains. He makes up for this one-sided nature with his mastery of weapons, and may discard any weapon Loot card he carries to add two Vorpal (wild) to his attack roll!

Fallen Heroes Tower Adventures Unlocked!

At $17,500 we now can add five additional Oversized Tower Level Cards, themed toward the Fallen Heroes from the original Ravingspire boardgame. Encounter your old friend Garsome Cinderheart, once an ally but now blacksmithing weapons for his new Dark Lord, or help noble rogue Shayla Nimblenook steal some Loot from the Dark Tower...

At $20,000 another five Oversized Tower Cards will be added, each with encounters based on the eldritch works of H.P. Lovecraft. Try to bargain with a clutch of Deep Ones residing near the black pool, or gird your steel and battle a mind-shattering Star Spawn face-to-face!

At $22,500 we will be able to engrave all the dice in the game. The engraved dice are a VERY a cool upgrade and just feel more epic in your hands as you do battle within the tower, over regular painted dice. I think they look and feel great and am really hopeful we can produce them engraved!

At $25,000 we can add a whole grip of new Loot cards in the game. Each Loot card gives the Hero wielding it a boost to their combat or defense, and they each have a colorful and unique illustration of the treasured object to help bring the game closer to reality.

At $27,500 we can nearly double the size of the Portal Book and increase the Otherworldly Options and will bring three new Portal Worlds into the game. This adds 6 new Portal Cards and their associated Challenges and Outcomes added into the Portal Book. These new other realms include the Steampunk City of Looking Glass Port, the Vampire-haunted halls of The Dark Cathedral, and the Old West Town of Purgatory.

At $30,000 we get New Final Battles! We will add two new Final Boss Spire Cards to the game. The oversized Spire cards are beautifully printed on heavy cardstock and the threats upon them present the ultimate level of challenge to a party of any size.

This stretch goal level also grants our Quest backers (those who also picked up ReaverQuest in their pledges) a copy of our upcoming quickplay Spellcaster's dueling game: Runelord Quest!

At $40,000 we will have an audio track playlist created for all of the Tower Cards and every Portal Book adventure. You will become even more immersed in the Vorpal World when you have the Tower Card you draw read out loud.

Risks and challenges

Backing a Kickstarter is a risk, we at Vorpal Chainsword Games understand that fully. I've personally backed a number of projects on Kickstarter that have ended up being very late or not bearing fruit, and it disappoints me to no end because the promise of what Kickstarter allows creators to bring to life is limitless. Our first Kickstarter, Ravingspire: Assault on the Tower of Madness, was delivered to virtually every backer on or before the promised date, and we have done our homework to make sure we can deliver a beautiful game on schedule once again. We will do our utmost to get this game to you on or before the estimated delivery date. The game design is finished and we are very pleased by the prototypes received from the manufacturers we've worked with previously and the speed of their process. However, any unforeseen misprints in the final product would mean we’d need to resolve those issues before shipping them to our backers. Other unavoidable delays in shipping could be caused by sudden changes in international tariff laws, shipping strikes, or global thermonuclear war.

That said, we are anxious to get this adventure into your hands, and will not rest until every last backer is satisfied.

Support

Select this reward

Pledge US$ 50 or more
About US$ 50

Return to Ravingspire

ROGUE BACKER: One copy of Return to Ravingspire in a embossed leatherette wooden book-shaped box with all unlocked boardgame stretch goals. Shipping charge determined by country. Note that this pledge level only includes the boardgame stretch goals but does NOT include the additional QUEST stretch goals.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 60 or more
About US$ 60

Return to Ravingspire and ReaverQuest

REAVER BACKER: A copy of both Return to Ravingspire AND our card battle game Reaverquest (MSRP normally $15), along with all unlocked stretch goals for both games. Eligible for QUEST stretch Goals. Shipping charge determined by country.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 120 or more
About US$ 120

KS Ravingspire and Return to Ravingspire

RUNELORD BACKER (US Only): Did you miss the original Ravingspire kickstarter but would like to get your hands on a Deluxe Wood box Kickstarter copy of that game with all its original Stretch Goals? Well here's your chance to travel back through the portals of time and get one! You'll receive the new Return to Ravingspire, our battle card game Reaverquest, and the Deluxe Kickstarter original edition of the deck-building rotating-dungeon boardgame Ravingspire: Assault on the Tower of Madness, in its own wooden book-shaped box! This pledge level includes the QUEST stretch goals.
Note: Copies of the deluxe wooden version of the Original Ravingspire with all the previous Kickstarter stretch goals are extremely limited and available within the U.S. only. Shipping for this level is $15.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 150 or more
About US$ 150

Brick and Mortar Retailer

This is a level specifically for retailers who own a Brick and Mortar store. It includes 5 copies of Return to Ravingspire at a wholesale price. You must have a verified physical retail store business address to claim this reward. Shipping charge determined by country.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 300 or more
About US$ 300

Portal Hero

You will not only get a copy of Return to Ravingspire and Reaverquest and be eligible for all boardgame and Quest stretch goals, but you'll also have your name (or a pseudonym you choose*) used in one of the Other Realm Adventures in the Portal Book. Your D&D character might help the party escape the clutches of zombie dinosaurs in the Lost Lands, or the party may encounter you piloting an airship above the Steampunk city of Looking Glass Port!

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 500 or more
About US$ 500

GameholeCon Adventurer

You and a friend get a copy of Return to Ravingspire and Reaverquest (as well as all boardgame and quest stretch goals reached, plus some bonus Ravingspire swag), and the two of you get to play in a private Ravingspire-themed RPG session run by one of the creators of Return to Ravingspire at GameholeCon 2019!
Note: Backer and friend are responsible for getting themselves to the convention (Oct 31-Nov 3rd, 2019 in Madison, WI) and paying their own Convention and Hotel expenses.